


Cas's Adventures At Hogwarts

by theficisalie



Series: Wizard Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:51:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theficisalie/pseuds/theficisalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel Novak is a young wizard. He meets Sam and Dean at Hogwarts and they have shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Year One

**Author's Note:**

> Partially not!fic, partially fic, possibly I will never make it completely into fic. Thanks to the power of [Laurel](http://immigranteyes.tumblr.com) and [kazz](http://sosotheysay.tumblr.com) and [Trell](http://toidarian.tumblr.com).

theficisalie: castiel and I am going to go with novak because why the hell not  
theficisalie: I like that last name  
laurel: it is a good last name yes  
theficisalie: he grows up in a pureblood family obv, with his big brothers and sisters and cousins all showing signs of magic from an early age and going off and doing ministry work except a few of them who choose to raise dragons and whatever and are shunned from the family  
laurel: oh man are you doing what I think you are  
theficisalie: and of COURSE they are gryffindors and ravenclaws  
laurel: oh MAN keep going okay okay  
theficisalie: except for castiel's notable big brother and twin of michael (gryffindor), lucifer who got put in slytherin (a travesty)  
theficisalie: and all of them, even wonderful redheaded anna who looks like none of the rest of the novaks (dirty blonde, most of them, and brown-haired in the other branches of the family), showed magic throughout their childhoods  
laurel: :-D  
theficisalie: except poor little castiel, a dull brown-haired thing ("gets it from raphael's blasted genes" says his father, not ever mentioning castiel's wonderful blue eyes that are not even close to the icy greys and greens of his siblings much to his despair) who never showed anything, even when he got put with the other novaks and christensons and lucifer's kids, babies when he was growing up  
theficisalie: they ALL were making glasses disappear and starting fires but all castiel could do was build really great sandcastles and outfly them all within an inch of their lives, even his elder brothers  
laurel: oh man  
theficisalie: the only ones he couldn't outfly were michael, lucifer, and raphael (who obviously was a star seeker for the vannes vectors (france's team) until he knocked up a veela and was subsequently demoted to playing for the mosjoen mead-drinkers in norway  
theficisalie: who went on to win the cup so sucks to be france)  
laurel: omG  
theficisalie: but EVEN with that under his belt, it was a particularly painful upbringing, particularly since his mother died giving birth to him and his father was a workaholic, and his older brothers were righteous as hell about the qutheficisaliety of their blood and the wives they all chose were scrutinized  
theficisalie: not counting anna, who the elder siblings all but ignore ever since she brought a french girl home one thanksgiving  
laurel: omGOMG  
theficisalie: not even the wealthy pureblood auror she hooked up with over the next two years could erase that scandal from the family's memory  
laurel: oh man  
laurel: seriously anna's got it rough WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CAS  
theficisalie: castiel is sitting at the table in their kitchen, fiddling with the rolled-up hems of his too-big shirt  
theficisalie: on the afternoon of may 2  
theficisalie: he'd been sitting there for a long while, probably hours, but maybe was actually five minutes, when anna walked in, fingers covered in dirt from where she'd probably been tending to their horrifically green lawn  
theficisalie: cas usually helped do gardening but his mind was preoccupied today because it was his _birthday_.  
laurel: D: oh no did they forget wait don't wanswer that KEEP GOING  
laurel: AT LEAST DON'T ANSWER IT DIRECTLY  
theficisalie: they seemed to! but of course, lucifer didn't live at home any more and michael was at work until the late hours of the evening. Often, Zachariah would stop over and try to engage Anna in some kind of play or word battle, since they weren't either of them 17 yet and couldn't use magic to wreak havok on the novak home  
theficisalie: so cas had gotten up, done half of his chores, and then sat himself down at the kitchen table and waited for the mail.  
theficisalie: the daily prophet usually came at noon, delivered by michael's glossy barn owl, but it hadn't arrived yet  
theficisalie: and it definitely hadn't arrived alone, which Cas was unendingly grateful for  
theficisalie: because that could only mean one thing and he was so not prepared for that one thing it was almost unreal.  
theficisalie: but anna was there now, and it had been the first he'd seen another person around the house all day, so he just stared at his sister, who was only five years older than him but already well on her way to being the prettiest girl in the entire world  
laurel: AWWWW  
theficisalie: she washed her hands in the sink and went, "Hey bro," like it was no big thang  
laurel: hehehe  
theficisalie: but it WAS a big thang okay because it was cas's birthday and everyone had forgotten  
theficisalie: but he just said "hey" back because he didn't know what to do

so Anna was all, "You doin okay?" because she was a great sister and things and it looked like Cas might be sad, and as much as they teased each other like siblings, she loved the little guy. But Cas just shook his head and was like, "I'm gonna go for a fly,” which was a thing he did fairly often so he hoped she wouldn’t be suspicious.

He flew around for a while and played some half-hearted quidditch with himself, which wasn’t really any fun but whatever. He was still using Michael’s old broom which had been top of the line in its day and which Cas took super good care of. When he came in, after putting the broom back in the shed on its hooks, Anna and Zach were at the table in the kitchen and there was a little cake in the middle! IT looked kind of sad, but Cas was just like :D “you did that for me?!” and Anna was like “Of course, it’s your birthday, Cas!”

and they ate the cake before even having dinner and it was the best thing ever up until Zach said, with a smirk, “Got your letter yet?”

and then suddenly Cas wasn’t hungry anymore and his face sort of fell and Anna made Zach leave but the damage was already done, Cas was probably a squib and his life sucked. Anna hugged him but he didn’t want pity so eventually they just ended up watching the meteor shower that happened after the sun fell.

Michael got home super late as usual and he was all stony-faced and Cas and Anna were huddled in a blanket on the front lawn and Michael walked up to them all, “Did you receive your letter?”

and Anna was making the stop-talking-about-it face but Cas just sort of buried his face

and then Michael said, “I thought not.” AND THEN HE WHIPPED OUT A LETTER FROM HIS COAT and was like “Erstworth brought it to me with the prophet”

and CAS GOT IN TO HOGWARTS

*

so they went to diagon alley to get Cas some stuff! The Novaks were not poor by any stretch of the word, like they were pure bloods and they lived in a nice house that was already paid off and they had funds for new books and things, but they were responsible with their money so he wore mostly hand-me-downs because kids grow fuckin fast and they don’t have a mom to pay attention to that! But his hand-me-downs were plentiful because he had a shitton of cousins and siblings so he always had things that fit pretty well and were in good condition, they donated the stuff that was wrecked or really gross bc they had an image to maintain. And Michael was all “You can have my Gryff tie if you get in” and Anna was like “don’t JYNX him MIKE what the FUCK” and then they had a long conversation about how swearing WAS NOT APPROPRIATE, ANNA, ESPECIALLY NOT IN PUBLIC

and while they were doing that, Cas sort of wandered over to this glass display where there was a quidditch flag and he pressed his nose up against the glass until he could see the broom. There, in the middle of the room, in the lit display and surrounded by gaping kids and adults, was a beautiful, white aspen handle and a gleaming golden kick. The bristles were all smooth and sleek and so similar yet so unlike the broom Cas had been using for all of his life that he felt a yearning for the broom somewhere deep inside. It looked perfect, and it almost seemed to be reaching out for him, but Michael appeared at his shoulder just as his breath had fogged up too much of the glass for him to see past. They got him books and cauldrons and a billion other boring things before they got to the emporium, where Cas pointed at the tiny tawny owl that had clicked its beak at Cas on his way in the store and declared that it was the one he wanted, even though all the other Novaks had barn owls. Michael didn’t even bother arguing.

Next was Ollivander’s, where every wand that the man put in Cas’s hand did absolutely nothing. After about ten minutes of this, the old man was scratching his head and saying he should train someone to do this job when he was gone because he sure seemed to be losing his touch. Michael said “He’s always been like this,” and Ollivander said, “Resistant to magic?” and Michael said “Resistant to everything” and Cas thought that he might cry in front of his older brother and the guy who made all the wands.

But then Anna came in from the alley where she’d been talking to some friends from school, and she said, “He has fucking not” and Michael shouted at her and Cas just sort of wished that they would stop fighting and closed his eyes really tight.

He opened them when Ollivander’s frail hand landed on Cas’s shoulder. “I think I’ve got just the thing,” the man said, and he opened a thin black box. It was the thousandth box Cas had seen but this wand was...different. It was sort of a light brown, like Michael’s hair, and twisty near the end but solid and firm where he would hold it.

“Oh,” Cas said, under the sounds of Michael’s hushed argument with Anna.

“Oh?” Ollivander said back.

“It’s singing,” Cas said, still just looking at the wand.

“Well, I think you’d better answer, don’t you?” the man asked.

Cas nodded and gently scooped the wand from its box. It hummed happily in his hand until he could no longer even feel that it was there.

“Yes,” Ollivander said. “That’s the one. Hazel, twelve and a quarter inches, with unicorn tail core. It has a brother whose core is phoenix tail and I should have made the connection earlier, but you’re the fiery redhead’s brother, aren’t you?”

“Anna?” Cas asked, still transfixed by the wand. _His_ wand, a hushed voice said in his mind. “She’s my sister.”

“She’s got the companion to your wand, though it’s made of a much more flexible wood than yours. More dangerous, too, but she keeps her temper when she uses it, doesn’t she? Eleven inches, flexible, and a hell of a kick to it.”

“Oh,” Cas said. His wand ran in their family. Finally. Something of his that did.

“Another dud?” Michael asked, from the corner of the store.

“Not at all,” Ollivander said.

Michael and Anna exchanged a look. “But it hasn’t done anything,” Michael said.

“Yes it has,” Ollivander said. “It has chosen an owner.”

Cas beamed at his wand and then at Ollivander. “It chose _me_.”

*

Going to school was weird. Really, really, _really_ weird. It had been something that Cas had been looking forward to for pretty much his entire life. But instead of being at home all day or going to the Wizard’s Preschool down the road, he and Anna and Zachariah and Balthazar got dropped off at King’s Cross by Michael, lugged their trunks and cages over to the steward who helped load them on the train. Anna and Zachariah disappeared almost right away, off to talk to their friends and probably to sit with them, and Cas was stuck with Balthazar who was super chill even though it was his first year too.

Balthazar was all, “Well Cassy, let us find ourselves a nice little cabin to sit in, shan’t we?” And they walked around a bit, trying to find an empty one, and then the train started to move and they still hadn’t found a place and Cas was starting to freak out when he saw a lady with a snack trolley in the farthest car and then finally Balthazar peeked his head in a compartment and said, “Oh look, free seats. Cassy, let’s.”

“Hey,” someone in the compartment growled when Balthazar tried to go in. “These seats are taken.”

“ _Dean_ ,” a second voice whined, but Balthazar stepped out, rolling his eyes.

“Sorry to bother you with our friendship,” he shouted, and pulled Cas with him. “Let’s go sit with Zach. If anything, he’ll let us sit on the floor.”

“I don’t think that’s safe,” Cas said, but his complaint went unheeded by his dirty blonde cousin.

The rest of the train ride was fairly uneventful, with Zach’s slytherin friends poking fun at Cas’s height and almost-too-big robes, and he wished that he’d been allowed to sit with the mysterious Dean and his travel companion.

The first years were ushered onto a fleet of boats fairly quickly after getting their bearings and Cas was somehow separated from Balthazar. He ended up on a small boat with two boys and a girl. The one he was sitting next to leaned over with bright green eyes and said, “Hey, I’m Sam!” to Cas in a hushed whisper.

Cas just nodded. “Castiel,” he said, shrinking when the girl in front of them shot him a glare.

“I’m _trying_ to enjoy the moment,” she hissed, her dark eyes flashing with anger.

“Hi, I’m Sam!” Sam said, smiling innocently at the girl who turned forward with an angry huff.

“Would you shut up and look at the castle?” she asked, looking in disdain at the boy next to her who seemed to be fast asleep. “Honestly.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and ignored them for the rest of the boat ride.

“This place is awesome,” Sam whispered to Cas when the girl continued to ignore them. “It’s so big!”

Cas nodded, looking up at the lights of the castle ahead of them. It had rained the whole way here, but the clouds seemed to have cleared just for them. The sight definitely inspired awe in the young Novak.

“It’s neat that you can see where they had to rebuild some of the wings,” Sam whispered. “And did you notice when we came that it felt different? That’s because of all of the protective charms and spells they had to renew after the Battle of Hogwarts.”

Cas knew all about that. He’d been born on its anniversary, and had heard all about it. The celebrations for it very nearly took precedence in the Novak household each year, but Cas sometimes pretended that the fireworks display that night were for him.

“Sometimes I pretend that the fireworks displays people do on May 2 are for me,” Sam whispered, and Cas blinked in surprise at the boy. “What?” Sam asked. “I mean, I’m not self-centred, it’s just that’s my birthday.”

“Mine too,” Cas said, and Sam lit up like the castle.

“That’s so cool!” Sam said. “Did you get your letter at night, too? Dean -- my older brother-- he got his at like noon, but mine didn’t come until like, ten at night!”

Cas gaped, but the boats docked themselves just then and he lost Sam in the shuffle of eager children. The path up the many stone steps was a blur of bodies until they got up to the ornate front doors, where a stern woman with a round face and brown hair greeted them.

“Good day, children. My name is Professor Ellen Harvelle, and I am the head of Gryffindor House. When you walk through those doors, you will find a world that some of you are already a part of and that others have only dreamed of --”

Her voice was soothing and soft and Cas found that his attention was waning. He’d already heard her speech from almost all of his cousins, and he could see Balthazar across the room also nodding off. There was a short hiss behind Cas, and he turned a little to see Sam’s beaming face.

“Hey, dude!” Sam whispered.

Cas made wide eyes, trying to suggest that Sam stop talking while Professor Harvelle was giving her speech, but the boy just grinned.

“What house do you want to be put in? My brother’s in Gryffindor and he’s gonna be pissed if I get something else, but from what I’ve read, I think I’ll probably get Ravenclaw.”

Cas’s heart was pounding. He was going to get in trouble. So much trouble.

“My friend Jo’s here too, and she’s hoping to get Ravenclaw too, ‘cos her mom’s Professor H up there, and she thinks that would be super awkward.”

“Um,” Cas whispered, but Professor Harvelle shushed the murmurs of the crowd with a single glare as the doors opened.

SORTING HAT SONG HERE. Everybody is in shock and awe and then.....THE ROLL CALL.

Professor Harvelle cleared her throat. “Amanda Abbott.”

A girl, skinny and shy, stumbled forward up onto the stool. Her eyes were clenched shut as the ratty hat fell on her head. There was silence in the Hall, not a single whisper or breath, until the hat opened up its mouth and shouted: “GRYFFINDOR!”

The red table erupted in cheers and the next kid went up. Balthazar was near the start, and he of course got Slytherin like his older brother. A slight blonde girl who was called Jo Harvelle (Cas made the connection between Sam’s friend and that girl even before Sam elbowed him in the kidneys) stomped up, huffed momentarily, and gave the hat a good two minutes before it finally shouted: “GRYFFINDOR!”

She didn’t look angry though, so Cas supposed something must have happened once it was on her head. The boy who had been in their boat sleeping was put in Slytherin, and a handful of glasses-clad girls got Ravenclaw. The angry brunette girl who had been in the boat with them, Ruby Lamont, was put in Slytherin, and then Professor Harvelle called: “Castiel Novak.”

Cas’s heart was pounding so hard and he had been wincing in preparation of his name being called the whole time, so when he finally heard it, he almost said “Yes?” instead of walking. His breath caught in his throat and Sam finally pushed him. He stumbled a little on the hem of his robe and sat on the stool. His feet weren’t nearly close to touching the ground and he thought his heart might actually stop, but Professor Harvelle gave him a surprisingly reassuring smile and then the hat was on his head.

It was...too big. He couldn’t see anything, and he could hear the murmurs of kids commenting on the little kid with the big name. His ears burned red under the heavy folds of the hat, and then there was silence.

An old voice curled around his ears, its sighs erasing everyone else from his consciousness and Cas sighed. He wasn’t going to get Ravenclaw, that was for sure. He wasn’t nearly smart enough for that.

_Not just smart kids under blue and bronze, young wizard. Ravenclaw is the home for thinkers, not necessarily geniuses. Hermoine Granger was in Gryffindor and she is one of the brightest wizards alive._

_But enough about others. What is it that you have inside of you?_

It didn’t matter what Cas wanted. He never got what he wanted.

_But if you could._

If he could? He’d choose to be with Anna.

_Gryffindor? I feel bravery in your noggin, young wizard, but that is not all I see. I see warmth and kindness. Unbending loyalty to be sure, but something much greater and much more difficult to find in the world. Ravenclaw is out of the picture. You could take Slytherin, I’ve put your lot there before, but Gryffindor would be a better fit._

_Unless..._

Gryffindor, yes, please. Anything to make his family proud.

_Would they be proud if you did what was expected of you?_

Surely.

 _And would_ you _be proud, young Novak?_

Cas frowned. He’d always done what his family wanted. It hadn’t been enough yet but he was the last one, the youngest son, the smallest and most insignificant. It would be enough. Wouldn’t it?

_And yet I feel a spark of greatness in your soul that requires a healthy flame. This is a compliment and a glove for your hand, young Novak. Castiel. You must break ground. You must be brave and free and most of all, away from your family. Family can be poison in your veins._

Michael would be proud if Castiel was put in Gryffindor. Michael might _finally_ be proud of him.

_If that’s what you want, Castiel. Is it?_

Castiel thought about brooms and dragons and family reunions.

He thought about Sam and Anna and Michael and Zachariah, about Raphael, and about his own father.

And it wasn’t what Castiel wanted at all.

_Atta boy. You’ll go far if you can give yourself the credit you deserve, Castiel. And with that, say hello to your new home:_

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

The yellow table, which had thus far been neglected by the hat, burst into thunderous applause and cheers that Cas heard as the hat was removed from with his head. He couldn’t remember anything about the walk to his table except Anna’s approving nod, appraising looks from some of the other students, and the final words of the hat that had rung in his ears as the fabric was lifted.

It was what he heard as Professor McGonagall gave her speech, as they tucked in, and as they walked to the kitchens where their common room was located. The words had accompanied the fall of his heart as a house so unlike anything his family aspired to had been given to him, the first of their entire in-house and extended family to walk under yellow and black.

There was an image as well, that the hat had shoved at him before it was lifted from his head: an image, of fire devouring a patch of the grounds and of a hand stretching from the flames as his viewpoint hovered on high.

But it was the words of the hat that stuck with him, spoken in its paper-deep voice, wrapping around the sinking stone of his heart and barely keeping despair from lapping at the shore of his mind: “Your choices will take you far, Castiel Novak.”

There were other boys in Cas’s dormitory, and they talked excitedly amongst themselves, only one of them sitting in silence like Cas. They shared names and favourite hobbies, but Cas could only grasp their names before he fell into his bed, troubled.

The hat took your choices into consideration. So Cas had chosen Hufflepuff. The least of the Novaks choosing the least of the houses. It was appropriate. Fitting. And it made Cas feel like vomiting until the rest of the boys quieted down and the quiet boy from before shot Cas a shaky grin.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

Cas shook his head.

“Name’s Ash,” the kid said, from behind his truly spectacular mullet that was insistently creeping around his head. “Me neither, dude. Can’t help the feeling that I got put in the wrong place. My sister wanted Ravenclaw but she got Gryffindor like the rest of my family.”

Cas blinked. “Same,” he said. “Not this year...but --”

“None of ‘em ever got Hufflepuff?”

Cas nodded.

“Yep. But it’s a good house. Doesn’t mean we’re any less or any different from the rest. Hat said I was brave as shit and lightning smart, dude, but that Hufflepuff was way better. Even though I’m like, really fuckin’ smart?”

Cas winced at the swearing but nodded. “I’m not any of those things.”

“Eh,” Ash said. “I guess we can make a name for ourselves, huh? I figure it thinks I’m a really great and humble person. And that I’m gonna need a ton of food, good thing we’re right next to the kitchens, huh?!”

*

Classes started the day after the students got a tour of the school. The students from years 2-7 already knew the grounds fairly well, and got a day off, which Anna told Cas later was a rarity. They’d be busy around the clock almost, until it came time for the holiday in which case Cas would probably be let off easy this year with just a few inches of homework instead of several feet. “And look out for Professor Hagrid,” she told him. “He seems easygoing, but he loves his animals to pieces. And Professor Flitwick. He’s tiny, but really strict about how you cast your spells. But I think you’ll be fine. You’ve got Novak blood, we’re all good at spells.”

Cas fiddled with his yellow tie at that: he was pretty sure he had it on backwards, and it had been too tight in the morning so he’d loosened it, but nobody had said anything to him about it yet. The wind rushed past them on its way to the lake, and Cas didn’t speak up about how he was the least Novakian Novak to ever exist. The Pre-School he’d attended had given him a crash-basics course on Runes and Arithmancy (the latter at which he was not very good), as well as flying and some basic wand motions. He’d also learned about wizard history, and the only things he was really nervous about were the applicative courses where he’d have to put his basic knowledge into practice, and then the only one on his syllabus he knew nothing about: muggle studies.

“Hey,” Anna said, moving her pale face towards him. Her red hair flew behind them like a flag. “Chin up, Cas. Yellow looks good on you.”

Cas looked down at the cuffs of his sleeves and the tie he’d so dreaded receiving. “You think so?”

“Yes,” Anna said, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Think of it this way. Red and green would clash with your eyes, and blue would wash them out, make them less special. But yellow...I think it’s really good, Cas. You’re really gonna be something.”

Cas flushed, but Anna teased him for the smile she could see on his face all the way to supper.

Later, Ash introduced Cas to his sister, the blonde who’d so desperately wanted to get into Ravenclaw but who had been placed in the same house as her mother. She was polite to Cas and rough with Ash and the two of them talked more to each other than to him until their curfew was called.

It turned out that not only did Ash like to talk, he liked doing it for hours on end. He wouldn’t shut up about the things he’d learned about the castle, so when Cas fell asleep it was to the sound of Ash’s excited whispers.

The next morning, they had classes. Their first ones ever. And they were mostly shared with the Ravenclaw students from their year, except for the two classes they had with Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Cas’s schedule looked like this:  
First block: Charms  
Second block: Arithmancy  
Third block: Lunch/Study  
Fourth block: Defense Against the Dark Arts  
Fifth block: Potions

He had classes on the second day that switched places with those of the first: History of Magic, Herbology, Muggle Studies and Flying. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the first three, but he was looking forward to flying again. Professor Sprout had informed them during their tour of the grounds that first years were not permitted to have their own brooms. But maybe if he was good enough in the class, they might make an exception for him. Probably not, with the way Castiel’s luck was going recently.

But he had a full day to fret about whether or not he’d be good enough at flying on what Anna had told him were “The oldest fucking brooms on the entire fucking planet.”

(She apparently hung out with some fairly foul-mouthed Gryffindors, not that Cas really minded. Anna was the best.)

 

*

 

He’d ended the previous day by doing the assigned readings for his classes while Ash waxed about his sister and what the Gryffindors did for fun and did you see that thing in the lake it was probably the giant monster right, right?!

When he’d woken up, it had been to a book in his lap and Ash’s loud snores from the bed adjacent to his. He ate breakfast, packed his books into his bag, and then the Hufflepuff group who were heading to charms together got lost on their way to Charms, tried to take a staircase back to the route on the little map they’d been given, only to have the staircase move the moment the last ‘Puff stepped on the gloriously mischievous marble.

Suffice to say, the entire lot of them was fifteen minutes late to the class, for which slight they had to endure a ten minute lecture from Flitwick on the importance of choosing one’s route and always leaving an extra ten minutes for stair mishaps. They barely had enough time to find seats before the lesson proper started, and by the time the class was over, Cas felt like he was already a day behind. The rest of his classes passed in a similar blur, and, feeling quite like his head had been turned round on his neck, he did the newly assigned readings over supper and on his way to bed and fell asleep before Ash could get in more than five paragraphs of speech.

The next day was almost as bad as the first, except after the horrendous hour of Muggle Studies (what was a “remote” and why was he supposed to care about it again? at least Balthazar was in the class with him), the class migrated to the green where they met up with the Ravenclaws again.

The brooms were all laid out with spaces between them for the wizards and witches, and for the first time, Cas felt like he could look up from his shoes or his books. He was standing next to Ash, but across the row from him, with a face-bright beam, was Sam.

“Hey!” Sam said, waving cheerily.

Cas blinked at him and had barely lifted his hand to wave back when Madame Hooch with her trumpeting voice called out for them to pay attention.

“I’m sure some of you know what these are,” she said, pointing to the stick-and-twig combinations in front of them. The class rumbled with laughter and she smiled. “Yes, they are brooms. I surely hope that you all know that members of the magical community use them to fly, but if not, then you know it now! I could lecture you on the basics of broom-lore and broom usage, but suffice to say that they are magical in nature, created by a series of very strong and powerful charms that you probably won’t learn until seventh year if you do learn them at all. They respond to touch and temperament, and much like your wands, will react differently to different witches and wizards. These brooms have been handled by so many students, however, that you will notice they are more sluggish than the brooms you might see used in our Quidditch games. While you are not permitted to have your own broom this year, if you are a good enough flyer, you will be able to try out for the team either this year or the next. I will warn you that it is almost impossible for any first year to join your house’s team, so do not get your hopes up too much.”

She clapped her hands and pointed to the ground. “Enough talking. I want you to hold your hand above your brooms, everybody, hands at waist level. Look at your broom and imagine it in your hand, picture yourself flying it, and say, on the count of three, ‘Up’. Hands!”

Cas laid his hand out, like he had so many times before. The broom at home which Cas was allowed to use was an old one of their mother’s, and whenever he held his hand above the familiar wooden shaft, he felt familiarity rise up to meet him from the grains of wood. He didn’t even have to speak to get the thing in his hand: she leapt from the ground with only the barest thought. Some days, Cas didn’t even have to lift a hand.

This broom, however, was different. There was apprehension below him: Cas could feel it. It had been used so often and so poorly that it felt neglected. There was some amount of joy, too, but it had been squashed by so many poor and abusive riders that the broom wasn’t even sure if it wanted to give Cas a chance.

Madame Hooch cleared her throat and said: “Three.”

Cas let out the breath he’d been holding in the silence, picturing himself on his mother’s broom. This one wouldn’t be the same, of course: it had a mind of its own and didn’t know the way Cas shifted his weight to turn.

“Two.”

Instead of thinking of the direct obedience his mother’s broom showed him, Cas thought about the shaggy-haired boy across the row from him, and how the boy had extended an arm towards Cas in friendship a few days ago. He sent the same feeling to the broom below him, and understanding of faults and failings, of which Cas had plenty. Friends had to compromise, and learn, and the broom below him heard his plea.

“One.”

It sent back a tendril, and maybe Cas was over analyzing the situation, but he felt like the broom was pleading back for Cas to give it a minute. It wasn’t ready to be ordered, and if he tried to, it wouldn’t make his life easy.

“Up!” Madame Hooch cried.

The class echoed her, brooms jiggling on the grass. Some flew up, some waited, moving with effort on the ground, reluctant to obey or participate. The classmates around Cas shouted the word again and again, until Cas felt almost foolish for listening to what very well could have been an imagined conversation inside his own head.

“You!” Madame Hooch said. Cas had been mostly watching his broom, hand still outstretched, when the woman came towards him, her stride long for such a short woman.

He looked up, suddenly afraid. “Um.”

“You aren’t paying attention, boy,” Madame Hooch said. “You’ve got to tell your broom what you want, and the easiest way to do that is by directing your thoughts through your words. Why aren’t you asking your broom up?”

Cas flushed. Between the sun beating down from overhead, the last vestiges of summer in full force today, his heavy robes, and the fact that almost all of his classmates had a broom in their hands, and if not, had fallen silent and were staring at him, he was sure that his face was a bright red. “Um, well.”

Madame Hooch eyed his broom and then leveled the same glare at Cas’s face. He looked at his feet. “You picked one of the most stubborn brooms here, boy. You’ve got to command it or it will command you in the sky.”

“No, but --” Cas said.

“Say it, say the command,” Hooch said. “Or it’ll be points from your house.”

Cas balked and opened his mouth. Beneath his hand, the broom bristled. If Cas spoke to it now, said anything resembling a command, it would hate him for all of eternity.

“Come now, boy,” Hooch said.

Cas bit his lip and looked down at the broom. “It doesn’t want to be commanded,” he whispered, feeling tears prick at his eyes.

The class, who had started murmuring, let out a low chuckle.

“What?” Madame Hooch asked. “What did you say? Speak up.”

“It doesn’t --” Cas said, swallowing past the lump in his throat. Go on, the broom said to him. Cas looked up at Madame Hooch. “I -- It asked me not to.”

The class laughed at that, until Madame Hooch held up a hand. She looked pensive. “And what would it like you to say, then?”

“Nothing,” Cas said, repeating the wood’s thought. “It just wanted me to wait.”

“And wait you have,” Madame Hooch said. “So what’s it taking its sweet time for, then?”

The broom wiggled on the ground as Cas blinked at Madame Hooch, and then flew up into his hand with what felt like a sigh.

The woman’s mouth twitched in what looked like it might have been a smile, before she turned to the rest of the class and snapped, “Well, what are the rest of you standing around slack-jawed for? Get those brooms in your hands before I have to send you away!”

Over her shoulder, she nodded to Cas and said: “See me after class.”

Cas swallowed hard at that, but the broom was humming in his hand, and didn’t kick him off in the air like it promised it would have if he’d shouted at it.

 

*

 

Cas was still holding his broom when the rest of the class filtered off at the end of the day. Madame Hooch was busy bewitching the things to their rightful places, but she left the one Cas was holding and turned to him, an appraising look on her face.

“Castiel, is it?” she asked.

Cas nodded quickly.

She smiled. “You can let go of Boris now. I’ve got to put him away with the rest of them.”

“Oh,” Cas said, when he retheficisaliezed she was talking about his broom. No, not his. The broom. His friend, the broom? This was all getting to be very complex. “Right.”

He let the broom go, eyes still fixed on Madame Hooch.

“Right there,” she said, pointing to his side. “That is absolutely fantastic.”

“Um, I beg your pardon?” Cas asked, glancing down at Boris, who was hovering gently, sinking to the ground in a satisfied sort of way.

Madame Hooch waved her wand and sent Boris the broom off to his cupboard. “These Cleansweeps do not _hover_ , Castiel Novak.”

Cas tilted his head a little, squinting at the professor. He didn’t understand what that meant.

“They weren’t built for it,” she clarified. “The Firebolt was the very first broom to be built with this function and ability. Brooms, when not in use, fall to the ground. They lose the ability to remain in the air without a human touch.”

All of the brooms Cas had ever handled hovered for a while near his hand after he was done using them. He usually took that opportunity to snatch them from the air and put them on their racks, or took them to the corner of the shed where they oiled and took care of their equipment.

“The only time a Cleansweep has ever hovered has been after _I_ have been finished flying them,” Madame Hooch said, really smiling now. “And you said that your broom talked to you?”

“Not entirely,” Cas said. Madame Hooch’s face started to fall and Cas cleared his throat. “I mean, not in words! In thoughts. Um. Feelings?” He glared at his feet. “I just knew what it meant, that’s all.”

“Well it was remarkable. And Boris didn’t throw you once. Did you know, that in Harry Potter’s first year here, Boris took Neville Longbottom on a tour of the grounds before dumping him on the statue up there?” Madame Hooch pointed to an angelic figure with its hands folded demurely in front of it.

Cas shook his head.

“It’s true,” Madame Hooch said. “Of course, Harry himself got Lydia and flew her so well that she helped him catch a tiny object hurtling through the air. But Longbottom got a broken wrist, and he’s the nicest fellow you’ll ever meet, to boot. Suffice to say, I am very impressed with you.”

Cas hesitated, hoping beyond hope that the woman would say something about how he should try out for quidditch or something, but she just smiled and said: “I think we’ll be seeing more of you.”

*

Though the first few weeks of school were a hectic mess of new schedules, errant stairways and a quidditch tryout that Cas watched from afar, too afraid to try out lest they turn him down, life at Hogwarts seemed to settle after that first month. Cas had homework most nights, but it was easy to do, and he found himself looking up from his scrolls and books in class more often than he had before.

The first thing he noticed was that Sam (Winchester as he would later learn) was in almost all of his classes. The Hufflepuffs shared the majority of their classtime with the Ravenclaws for the first few years, and once Cas clued into this fact, he saw Sam staring at him in most of their classes, trying to catch Cas’s eye. Unfortunately, Cas had sat himself next to a red-cheeked Hufflepuff named Toby on his first day in all the classes, unaware of anything except his own two feet, and he was at a loss for how to communicate with Sam until Toby caught some sort of bird flu in his third week and had to be forcibly removed from the Hogwarts grounds before he could peck the rest of the students to death.

Cas learned about this during Charms class first thing Monday morning. He sat down in his usual seat, turned the pages in his book, and then nearly jumped out of his skin when someone very close to him said: “Toby caught the flu, isn’t that great!?”

“Merlin’s _beard_ ,” Cas breathed, when he was sure that he hadn’t actually left his skin behind.

Sam beamed at him. “Hi! I asked Professor Flitwick and he said it was totally cool that I sit next to you! Because of Toby! He caught the flu! Did I say that already? All I know is the girl I was sitting next to totally hates me. And Toby caught a bird flu.”

“Is that...possible?” Cas asked.

“Sure it is,” Sam said. “It happened in herbology they say. He had to go to St. Mungo’s. They’re gonna have to teach him to be a human again. Hey, where do you study after class? We should study together! We can be buddies!”

“Sure,” Cas said, and just like that, he had someone with which to do his homework after class. Sam suggested the library because it was “neutral ground” and because it was “fucking freezing outside.”

A few weeks went by without Cas really noticing: time flew when you had a friend to do things with.

One day, as he and Sam were writing a particularly grueling essay for Potions, Sam looked up from his chart of poison weeds and said: “Hey, are you going to the match tomorrow?”

Match. “Um,” Cas said.

“Quidditch,” Sam said, and he didn’t say it like Cas was the dumbest person ever to not know what he was talking about, which was one of the great things about Sam. “First game of the year.”

“Oh, right,” Cas said, trying not to turn red and probably failing. “Um. Probably. Who’s playing?”

“Gryffindor and Ravenclaw,” Sam said, making a face.

Cas frowned. “That’s bad?”

“Well,” Sam sighed. “No. And yes.”

“Let’s start with the yes,” Cas suggested.

“Well,” Sam said. “Well.”

“Well,” Cas said.

Sam laughed. “Okay, it sounds dumb. I’m in Ravenclaw, obviously. But my brother is in Gryffindor.”

Of course. Cas knew all about Dean, the heroic son who was braver than the average person, who got some bad grades but some great ones, who was tall and handsome and who played Quidditch and -- “Oh,” Cas said. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“You don’t know who to cheer for,” Cas said.

“Exactly,” Sam said, relief shining on his face. “Yeah. Like. I’m obviously going to cheer for my brother because he’s my brother. But Ravenclaw is kind of my thing, so... I don’t know. I’m not actually playing, you know?”

“Do you want to?” Cas asked.

“Not really,” Sam said. “Maybe. I guess? It looks dangerous... but I’d probably be good at it. I’ll try out next year maybe.”

“So cheer for Dean this year,” Cas suggested. “That seems like the best route to take.”

“I guess,” Sam said. “Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, Cas.”

Cas smiled at him, and they got back to studying.

 

*

 

As it turned out, Dean Winchester was the chaser for Gryffindor’s quidditch team. And he was....everything that Sam had described. He was tall and he had nice arms and both he and his teammates scored a significant amount of goals before the Ravenclaw seeker, a girl with wide eyes and lots of curly hair, desperately caught the snitch, making the final score 150 to 100 for Ravenclaw.

“That’s Jessica,” Sam yelled to Cas over the roar of the crowd. “It’s her first year playing! Dean says it’s his seeker’s first year too.”

Cas nodded along with what Sam was saying but his eyes were on Sam’s brother as he patted the dejected Gryffindor seeker on the back.

Interesting.

 

*

 

“Oh yeah, Jessica told me about that book. It’s supposed to be really good.”

Cas stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Sam had been talking about Jessica nonstop for...forever. Or at least two weeks. Ever since the quidditch game.

“She’s just one year older than us, you know,” Sam said.

“I know,” Cas muttered.

Sam sighed moodily and shut his book. “Okay. I have to go. Dean wanted me to watch their practice so I could tell him if I thought his new plays were any good.”

Cas stared at the third line in his own book, which he’d read five times and not understood. He wanted to be playing quidditch so bad it almost hurt. “Right.”

“You can come if you want,” Sam said, after hesitating for a moment. “It’s gonna be really boring. I don’t even really get half the stuff they do.”

“I will explain it to you,” Cas said, stuffing his things in his book bag. Good thing he’d grabbed his scarf and hat before leaving his common room. It was getting cold outside already.

 

*

 

“It’s no use, I’m hopeless,” Sam moaned.

“You’ve got to learn,” Cas said. Especially if Sam was going to go out with Jessica. Which he thought he probably would. Not this year, not next year, but maybe after that. “Girls like it.”

Sam slumped back in the bleachers. “Do they really?”

Cas nodded. He wasn’t sure if Sam could see his facial expressions from where he was bundled up so tightly, but hopefully the nod would carry itself across. “Yes.”

He only knew that because of Anna, who sidled up beside them and sat down beside Cas. “Hello, youngsters.”

Sam blushed. Or maybe his face was red because it was _freezing_. “Hey,” Cas said.

“What are you two doing out at this hour in this temperature?” Anna asked. Her red hair was waving free in the light breeze, the red a stark contrast to the wood of the bleachers behind them. Cas thought he saw Dean look their way, but he couldn’t be sure.

“I’m teaching Sam about quidditch,” Cas said.

Anna raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Cas said...” Sam said, blushing again. “He said girls like it.”

“Oh, totally,” Anna said. “I thought you guys were here for the cute girls who’re _playing_.”

“Sam is,” Cas said.

“Cas,” Sam hissed.

“What, and you’re just his tagalong?” Anna asked. She was grinning cheekily. “All right.”

“And why’re you here?” Sam asked, his eyes sharp.

“The players,” Anna said. “Specifically that one chaser. Yummy.”

Sam choked on air and Cas patted his back sympathetically.

Anna laughed. “Don’t catch a cold out here for love, boys. Let me be the first to tell you it isn’t worth it.”

Sam was wheezing as Anna left, and this time, Cas definitely saw Dean watch her go.

Also interesting.

But in a way that made Cas distinctly uncomfortable.

“Try not to die,” Cas said to Sam as he shrunk back into his yellow scarf.

 

*

 

Cas followed Sam to a lot of quidditch practices over the next few months. As the weather got increasingly more bitter, and as they got better at magic (Sam had been able to unlock doors without magic but now it was actually impossible to keep him out of places that were off-limits to first years), Cas spent a lot of his free time learning how to make heat charms. At first, the rocks he chose would splutter or spark (a few of them exploded and got him sent to the hospital wing), but after he read up on different rock types and which ones held heat better than others, and as he got better at enchanting, he soon made the long hours he and Sam spent on the bleachers increasingly more tolerable.

When it started to snow, they bundled up in coats and scarves and put warm pebbles in their gloves and boots and drank the cocoa that Sam had wheedled from the kitchen elves. They divided their time out of class between the library (where Cas read about how to make his heat charms last longer and Sam wrote essays like a total nerd), the kitchen (because they were always hungry) and the quidditch pitch. Sam told Cas that his brother wanted to know what the other teams were up to, and Cas just tried not to feel like his heart was breaking as he watched all the kids on their brooms.

Michael sent Cas the Daily Prophet and the occasional wizarding magazine, and Cas kept all of the broom ones under his bed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to afford a nice broom and he knew that he’d probably have to scrounge up the coins he’d earned by babysitting for the wizarding family who lived down the street from them and get a Cleansweep VI or something, but all he wanted out of life right now was to get the new broom by the makers of the Firebolt. They’d bought out the Comet Trading Company in order to improve their own braking charms and had released the Starbolt earlier in the year.

As it was, Cas spent a lot of time when Sam was staring at Jessica thinking about brooms. He went down to the shed where Madam Hooch kept them whenever he could spare and asked if he could borrow them. She was always happy to lend him Boris whenever there weren’t classes because Cas was the only one who ever bothered to practice his flying skills.

“Just because I don’t assign papers,” Madam Hooch complained one day as she was unlocking the building for Cas, “Doesn’t mean there won’t be an exam at the end of the year. But of course, nobody thinks that flying requires any study so I’ll be required to scale the difficulty level down for those morons who are sure that flying is _simple_.”

Cas found flying simple, but he neglected to say so, and just thanked Madam Hooch for letting him use them.

“You’ll try out for quidditch next year, young man,” she said to him as she taught him how to do that cool loop-de-loop thing that he’d seen Dean do. “Or you’ll be hearing from me.”

One day when Cas had been pushed around in the halls by a large Gryffindor and had forgotten to study the right chapter for Potions, had fallen into a puddle on his way to Magical Creatures and was generally cold and miserable, he trudged down to the broom shed where he usually met Madam Hooch only to encounter a note tacked to the door. It was flapping in the frigid wind that really would have bothered Cas if his boots and scarf weren’t bewitched to send off a light layer of heat, and it read:

_From the desk of Madam Hooch.  
Sick today, can’t come down with key to open shed. Quidditch practices cancelled. Sorry to any non-players who might want to practice as well. Will be back early next week._

Cas’s shoulders slumped. The one bright spot in his day was crushed. He wouldn’t be able to watch quidditch practices _or_ fly. He’d just decided that he’d have to go down to the kitchens and cry until the elves gave him something nice to eat when another bright spot caught his eye.

He turned to look in the direction of the light, which turned out to be the Owlery, where the school and students kept their owls.

It appeared to be... on fire.

From where he was standing, Cas could see the window that the owls used to fly in and out of the closed building. Birds were flying out of it, and... there was a figure, climbing out on the ledge.

There was someone trapped in the tower.

Which was _on fire._

Cas pulled out his wand and turned to the broom shed. He knew that the locks Hogwarts used on most of their doors were guarded by layers of spells, but there was only one way for him to find out of this door was like that one. He traced the pattern of a lock in the air, like Sam had taught him, and said with command in his voice: “Alohomora!”

The door rattled, and then nothing.

Cas gritted his teeth together. “Aloho _mo_ ra!”

Nothing again.

How had Sam done it? He’d traced the pattern from bottom to top, and...right, added a little flick of his wrist at the end.

Cas tried a third time. “ _Alohomora!_ ”

The door opened. Cas rushed inside, taking less than a second to scan the shelves before his eye landed on Boris, to whom he said: “Up!”

Boris clearly sensed the urgency in Cas’s voice because the broom lept at the command, eager to do some real work. They flew as quickly as the broom could manage, to the tower of stone, atop which the flames were licking at the soles of the shoes of the person who’d clearly seen Cas coming and had climbed up.

The heat, as Cas approached the tower, was almost unbearable, and he fervently wished he’d shed his gloves and scarf. After a moment of indecision, he did so, letting the yellow knitted fabric fall to the snowy ground below them as Cas urged the broom higher. The school brooms were not meant to fly above a certain height, and Cas could feel the limitations in Boris’s wobbly flight as they climbed, but he ignored it and wished Boris to go faster.

There was smoke, too, probably from all the straw that the owls used, and from the droppings, and the wood on the inside of the tower.

The figure on the roof was clad in red and black, which made him vaguely hard to see, but when they lost their footing and skidded down to the lip of the tower Cas could definitely see them. And see that it was definitely a boy. Or a girl with really short hair.

The boy yelped, leaping back from a tongue of flame in an attempt to get away from the heat, which made him lose his balance again. For one sick moment, Cas saw the boy tilt forward, arms windmilling in the air. Through the haze of smoke, Cas saw that the boy was _Dean Winchester_ and Cas reached out as far as he could without losing his balance on the broom.

“Dean!” Cas shouted, over the roar of the fire. “Take my hand!”

There was fear in Dean’s eyes and he reached out. His fingertips brushed Cas’s before he lost his balance and fell past Cas’s reach. Cas pointed Boris straight down, whipping down until he could wrap his left hand around Dean’s upper arm, shouting a quick sticking charm with his wand hand so he couldn’t let go of the older boy. His eyes met Dean’s as the boy grabbed Cas in return, strengthening their connection, and then Cas pulled up on the broom as sharply as he could with his wand hand. The combined weight of two people meant that the broom couldn’t stop completely, and the angle made it feel like Cas’s arm was going to fall out of its socket (and maybe it had), but at least the broom, though it was taking them down alarmingly quickly, was also taking them away from the fire at the top of the tower.

The pain in Cas’s shoulder was quite intense, actually, and he could see Dean mouthing something like “Hold on”, but darkness swallowed Cas up before they could touch down on the ground.

 

*

 

When Cas woke up, he was in the hospital wing.

He recognized the white beds and high ceilings from when he’d gotten stone lodged in the back of his arm during his first few rock heat charms. What he did not recognize was the bandage around his shoulder or the slice of pain that nearly leveled him when he tried to sit up.

“Cas!” someone said near his head, and when Cas peeked open an eye, he saw Anna’s concerned face hovering nearby. He pushed himself up using his other arm and looked around. Anna’s face was pale and full of fear and possibly rage. Balthazar was lounging on a chair, looking decidedly bored.

“You’re alive, then,” Balthazar said. “I’m going to dinner.”

Cas tried to say something like “Bye” but ended up coughing huge, painful coughs that only stopped when Madam Pomfrey pressed a white cloth to Cas’s mouth.

“That should be the last of them,” she said. “You were out for the more painful ones, I’m glad to say. And your shoulder is going to be painful for a while. Not much I can do for dislocation except put it back together and have you wait it out.”

Cas nodded, eyes wide. Anna’s hand was on his, and when he turned to her, she said: “How could you?”

Cas vaguely remembered falling, and then -- oh yes. Dean on the tower on fire.

“I saw that someone was in trouble,” Cas said. Was that bad? Had he done something wrong?

“You broke into the broom shed!” Anna exclaimed.

“And you set the tower on fire!” Balthazar chimed in, from where he was leaving. “Which, nicely done.”

Cas’s face must have spoke loudly enough, because he heard his thoughts come from across the room. “Cas did not set the tower on fire.” His thoughts were apparently being narrated by Sam Winchester.

Oh.

Because it was Sam talking.

“What?” Anna asked. “So, you didn’t...”

Sam, red-faced, waltzed across the room. “Cas didn’t set the tower on fire. I was in there when it happened, and it was that good-for-nothing little black-haired kid named Crowley who did it. I saw him with my own two eyes!”

“You were there,” Anna said, disbelief clear on her face because Sam was neither burned to a crisp nor hacking his lungs up. Speaking of which, where was Dean?

“I was,” Sam said. “Dean pushed me out of the room and then a beam fell and trapped him in there. It was definitely another kid, too. A bigger one who was good at fire magic.”

“Is there any proof of this?”

All three of them turned to stare at the woman standing in the doorway to the medical wing. Her grey hair was pulled up in a tight bun, and her pointy red hat was as intimidating as the long, red robes she was wearing.

“Prof...prof...prof...” Sam stammered.

“Professor McGonagall,” Anna said.

Cas just stared as the woman strode up to them. She was, of course, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, and she spared Cas a brief smile before turning her gaze on Sam again. “Is there proof, young Winchester, that another student was the cause of this disaster?”

Sam’s mouth worked, but no sound came out until Anna elbowed him in the ribs. “Um, er, no? I mean, I was there. I saw it happen. Cas here was nowhere in sight.”

“A single eyewitness account is not a satisfactory replacement for more tangible proof, Samuel.”

Sam blushed a deep crimson. Cas knew all about how Sam respected their headmaster, and he wished he could do something to help his friend out. Although...

“Two places at once.”

McGonagal turned her icy gaze on Cas. “I beg your pardon?”

“I couldn’t have been in two places at once,” Cas said, looking from Anna to Sam to McGonagal and then to his shoes, where he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Oh?” McGonagal said.

“Me and Sam had --”

“Sam and I,” McGonagal corrected.

Cas was probably as bright a red as Anna’s hair by now. “Right. Sam and I, we had the same class together. After it, Sam said he and Dean had to go mail a letter to their dad so they were going to the Owlrey and I didn’t want to go there, so I went down to the broom shed, where I found the note from Madam Hooch and then the fire started. So I wouldn’t have had enough time to start the fire and get a broom...” he said, trailing off when nobody else was saying anything. He didn’t dare look up at Professor McGonagal.

There was the sound of a few more footsteps, heels and loafers on stone, and then Professor McGonagal cleared her throat. “Very well-spoken,” she said.

“I asked to see the student Crowley Ferrier,” a deep voice said. “And he immediately confessed. He named a Ruby Dales as his accomplice. They’re second-years.”

“Very well,” McGonagal said. “I am going to dispense the points thusly. Fifty points from Slytherin for the actions of Crowley and Ruby. Ten points from Hufflepuff from Mr. Novak’s breaking Hogwart’s rules and unlocking the broom shed without permission.”

Sam cried out at that, but Cas just winced and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. This was the first time he’d done anything with points for his house, and it was going to count against them. It was on par with everything else in his life.

“Samuel Winchester, you will sit down until I have finished,” McGonagal said sharply. “I am Headmaster, and this is what I deem to be fair.”

There was a rustle of clothes and the sound of Sam exhtheficisalieng sharply, and then McGonagal cleared her throat again. “I will dispense five points to Ravenclaw on Samuel Winchester’s behalf, for defending his friend and doing so without jumping to too many rash conclusions. Twenty to Gryffindor for Dean Winchester’s actions in protecting his brother from the fire even at the risk of his own life.”

She let out a breath, and then Cas felt a hand on his good shoulder.

“And fifty points to Hufflepuff for Castiel’s own selfless actions, the unlocking and sticking charms he performed admirably even under stressful conditions, and in the exceptional skill he showed at flying one of the most difficult brooms in Hogwart’s possession.”

Cas looked up in shock to see Professor McGonagal smiling directly at him. “Well done, Castiel. If you don’t try out for quidditch next year, your house will truly have suffered a loss.”

“T-thank you,” Cas said, his voice tiny even in his own ears.

“Now,” McGonagal said, straightening up, and Cas saw beside her Professor Sprout, who looked quite proud; Professor Harvelle who was also beaming; and Professor Slughorn, who looked as though he felt the justice that had been dispensed was fair. “Madam Pomfrey informs me that while she would like to keep you in here, she cannot do much more for your shoulder, and I daresay if you miss tonight’s meal, you will be missing out on some of the finest pumpkin juice that our house elves have to offer.”

When Cas and Sam walked through the doors to the Great Hall, the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables actually applauded them for a good ten seconds, which was enough to make Cas’s face red again.

At least when people clapped him on the back in congratulations, they made sure to avoid smacking his bad shoulder.

 

*

 

Sometime after Thanksgiving, when Cas and Sam were studying for a particularly harrowing Potions test coming up (“What did Professor Slughorn say about bezoars?” “Is that the thing you extract from plants or --” “No, the stone in the stomach of a goat.” “Shit, right, fuck, that’s, I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I am going to fail”), Cas looked up from his book to see Sam being shoved from behind. The boy’s forehead hit his book and Sam spluttered as whoever had pushed him laughed loudly.

“And that’s my brother Sam, always with his face buried in a book.”

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam spluttered, turning around to face his brother.

Cas, who had also been hiding behind a book, peeked out to see Dean grinning and ruffling his brother’s hair with a hand.

“Hi Sam,” the girl standing next to Dean said.

Sam gaped and then blushed angrily. “Hi. Sorry my brother’s a jackass.”

The girl laughed as Dean spluttered. “Shut up, Sam. This is _Lisa_.” There was no mistaking the way Dean put an emphasis on the girl’s name because as he spoke, he lifted his eyebrows in what was probably supposed to be a very significant way.

“Oh,” Sam said. “ _Oh_. Hi, Lisa. Um. Yeah. Hi.”

Cas watched as Lisa smiled prettily and shook Sam’s hand, almost shyly. Sam was smiling for real now, a knowing brother kind of smile that made Cas sort of inexplicably sad for a moment.

That sadness was washed away when he noticed that Dean was staring at him, green eyes vaguely interested. Cas was too shocked at the extended eye contact to blink, and it was Dean’s eyes that fluttered away first. “Hey, Sammy, who’s your friend?”

Cas put his book down, eyes still on Dean’s, which flickered back to Cas’s when the book hit the table. He was a bit surprised that Dean didn’t recognize him. Most people didn’t know who Cas was, of course, but _most people_ hadn’t reached out to Cas in the midst of flame and smoke.

Dean was still staring, so Cas said the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”

What followed his statement was a silence so thick that you could have woven it into a cloak of invisibility.

“Uh,” Dean said, still staring at Cas. “Okay?”

“Dean,” Sam said. “This is _Castiel_.”

“Uh huh,” Dean said. It took a moment, but Cas could see when his name and whatever Sam had said about him to Dean clicked in Dean’s mind. “Oh! You’re Anna’s kid brother!”

Cas stared at him, fairly certain that his face was the same shade as Anna’s hair. You’re Anna’s kid brother. Wonderful. That’s all his identity ever would be, as the youngest and least significant member of the Novak family. Not even as the person who’d saved Dean from a ball of fire. Fantastic.

“Hey don’t look sad, little guy,” Dean said. “Anna’s awesome.”

Cas closed his eyes and wished that he could disapparate on Hogwarts grounds. “I have to go,” he mumbled, scooping up his books as quickly as he could.

He heard Sam’s voice in the background as he fled the library, saying: “Way to go, jackass.”, and Dean’s reply of: “What, she _is_.”

*

One snowy morning, Anna dropped by the Hufflepuff table to give Cas a letter. She seemed mad about it and was tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. She did so until Cas opened it and scanned the contents.

“It’s just like him,” Anna said, exhtheficisalieng sharply when Cas finally looked up. “Just like Michael to do something like this.”

As far as Cas could tell from the letter, Michael was saying that they should remain at Hogwarts over the holiday season.

“Dude,” Ash said, reading over Cas’s shoulder like always, “does this say your brother’s cancelling Christmas?”

“Yes!” Anna exclaimed. “Do you want me to write him back, Cas? I can probably persuade him to let us come back.”

Castiel remembered the holiday season from when he’d been at home. It generally consisted of Michael buying Anna and him a present each, of Cas and Anna making something for each other, of a lot of shouting and of Michael yelling at Lucifer over the phone, and of Zachariah and Balthazar coming over for a family quidditch match.

He mostly remembered the shouting matches between Michael and Anna, Michael and Lucier, Michael and the neighbours...

“No,” Cas said. When Anna’s face fell, he waved his hands. “Look, it’ll be fun just having you and me. Michael’s had us at the house all his life, he’s never gotten to really live on his own...and that isn’t fair to him, he isn’t...” _he isn’t our dad._

Anna bit her lip. “But what about...”

Cas saw the devastated look in her eyes and retheficisaliezed she’d been looking forward to them being at least a semi-functional family, which only really happened for a few days during the holidays. “What if we can get Balthazar and Zachariah to stay?” Cas asked. “Then it’d be almost our whole family. We can start new traditions, we’re allowed.”

Anna still looked pretty torn, so Cas cleared his throat. “Besides, my present for you is here and I don’t want it to get smushed on the train.”

“You...” Anna said, and smiled softly. “Okay, yes. We’ll stay.”

“Dude,” Ash said, when Anna stalked off to join the table of red-cloaked Gryffindors. “Your sister’s hot.”

Cas glared at Ash. “Shut up.”

 

*

 

All-in-all, staying at Hogwarts over the holidays was way better than going back to their house. Anna had knit Cas a yellow toque with the Hufflepuff logo stitched on it. Cas had charmed a pair of her gloves so they radiated a bit of heat on the inside. The trick with working with fabric and heat was that you couldn’t make the yarn too hot or it burst into flame. Cas had almost lost an eyebrow during his experimental period, but he felt fairly confident in his abilities now after only having burned a handful of old scraps.

Sam, who’d gone home with his brother, sent Cas a book by owl on charms, and by the time the Winchesters returned, Cas had started learning about cold charms as well. He figured he ought to get a head start for when summer rolled around: he wouldn’t be able to use his newfound magic at home, and he remembered how hot it got during those long summer months, but charms when cast right could keep for a long time. His heat charms weren’t perfect like that, but he was getting better every day.

In the new year, things changed. First, Dean started studying with them. At first, he hung around Sam at the library and made comments about how what they were learning was so easy to him now, but then when the teachers started assigning more and more work, he brought his papers with them, and then his books.

Second, Cas got really good at casting charms, but neglected to study enough for Muggle Studies, which he was finding increasingly more interesting (and perplexing and complex) as the year progressed. Their professor, Professor Singer, was a gruff man with a beard and the way he explained things to them made Cas more muddled than before. He asked Sam about a few things because Sam had grown up around muggles (which Cas found to be almost unbelievable), but the Winchesters seemed to guard their knowledge of muggle things very closely, so he rarely got much out of them.

Third, as the weather got better and they were able to go outside more frequently, they spent a lot of time studying as a group on the grounds, where the sun was beautiful and the air was wonderful and everything at Hogwarts was good and perfect.

Fourth, Gryffindor won the quidditch cup. It was the first time they’d won it in a few years, and it made Dean happy and rosy-cheeked and wonderful.

Fifth, Dean started dating Lisa, which somehow made Cas feel awful, even though he knew he should be happy for his friend, because Dean was definitely his friend and Sam was his friend and both of them liked Lisa.

And sixth, exams rolled around and Cas discovered just how little he had prepared for his Muggle Studies exam.

“You _what_?” Sam asked, aghast, when they walked out of the exam together. “But we studied so much, Cas! You can’t have failed.”

“What happened to who now?” Dean asked. Dean’s exam schedule was vastly different from Sam and Cas’s, and he’d come to meet them outside of the hall.

Cas stared and shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re fine,” Sam said, though he looked quite worried. The rest of their exams were easy, and before he knew it, Cas was standing on the platform at King’s Cross, waiting for Anna to say goodbye to her temporary boyfriend. Sam looked distinctly unhappy at the prospect of leaving.

“You’ll visit, won’t you?” Sam asked.

Cas shrugged. “I’ll write,” he promised. He wasn’t sure if Michael would take him to the Winchesters’ at all, and he was definitely not sure how the muggle’s transportation worked.

Professor Singer appeared with Dean under his arm, and gave Sam a gruff nod. “You ready, boy?”

Sam sighed and patted Cas on the back. “If you don’t write, I will,” Sam promised.

END OF YEAR ONE


	2. Year Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR ANY OF THIS. thanks trell.

The summer was too long and too short at the same time. Cas had never realized just how boring his house life was until he’d been given a taste of Hogwarts. He and Sam wrote each other several times a week, with Sam transcribing anecdotes about his house, the dog he wanted, his homework, and most importantly, Dean. Sam’s stories about Dean were Cas’s favourite stories. Dean was perfect in Sam’s eyes: he did his homework mostly on time, girls loved him, he wore the coolest clothes, and he knew everything about cars. Cas had no idea what a car was but it sounded super cool when Sam talked about it. Sam said that Dean wanted to become an Auror so he could hunt down dark wizards and things like that, and that he was totally going to get a good job at the Ministry of Magic right out Auror school, and Cas treasured all the stories that Sam wrote him like they were gold.

He tried to convince Michael to let him go to Sam’s so they could have a joint birthday party, because apparently Dean always got them muggle fireworks which were apparently awesome, but Michael refused to let Cas go on the grounds that he’d have no “adult supervision” while Michael was at work. So he had to stay at the Novak house all summer long. The worst part of it was that though Anna was there for most of the summer, she went off with her new boyfriend right after their grades came (“His name’s Lucas, isn’t that just precious”) and after she left, Cas was all alone. And to make matters even worse, though he’d excelled in Charms, Potions and just about everything else (aside from Arithmancy, in which he’d gotten a modest grade), he had failed Muggle Studies fairly spectacularly. Michael didn’t seem to care: he’d swept his eyes over Cas’s grades and promised that he would bring home a cake one day for Cas’s excellent marks in Charms. He forgot, of course, and so Cas was alone and without a cake for most of the summer.

Well. Mostly. Luckily he had Balthazar and Zachariah around. The elder of the Angelus brothers wasn’t always the nicest person around Cas, but after Cas mentioned that he was going to save up for a broom and try out for the quidditch team, Zachariah showed up at the Novak house every day to help him practice. He sent Balthazar around the ring with a handful of rocks and commanded his brother to “Be Bludgers, Bal.” Balthazar was more than happy to comply, as his favourite activity in the world was pelting objects at other objects.

“Now, you’re quite small,” Zachariah said one day, before they even started with flying training, which involved Zachariah shouting patterns for Cas to follow while Balthazar threw rocks at him. “So I don’t imagine they’ll put you on goal. And you’re strong, but the bludger blokes generally need to be two of a kind for a team to be really good. So what you should try out for is either chaser or seeker. If you’re going out for chaser, the bludgers are going to come at you full force and you’ll need to keep an eye out for them at all times. And it’s an easier position to get, so I’d suggest you try out for that one. But if you think you can handle flying around the ring and outflying the other seekers in pursuit of an invisible thing that nobody’s ever even sure is there...”

Balthazar jogged up to them, his arms full of rocks. “Oi, are you tellin’ Cas ‘bout bein’ a chaser?”

Zachariah rolled his eyes like they’d had this conversation before. “Obviously.”

“You never watched a game in your life,” Balthazar said. He was usually laughing by now, but his face was dead serious. “I know all the teams. The ‘Puff seeker’s a right fast sucker, but he’s got eyes like an eel and an ass like a hippo.”

“What does that even mean--” Zachariah said.

“Means,” Balthazar said, “If he can get a fast enough broom or just be a fast little thing on his own, Cas can outfly Roddy in a heartbeat, and I bet he could find the snitch faster, too. And he can put a heat charm on his gloves, so his hands won’t even cramp up when it gets downright nasty out.”

Zachariah looked pensive. “That’s true,” he said. “Roddy’s a slow guy in everything but the straight races. And Hufflepuff came in last this year, I bet they’ll be looking to replace someone, if not everyone.”

“Their Chasers are good,” Balthazar said. “Goalkeeper graduated, and so did their best Beater. But I think Cas has a shot here.”

“He needs a broom,” Zachariah said.

Cas held up his mom’s broom, which was bristling in indignation. “I’ve got this one,” he said.

“That’s a Nimbus 2000,” Balthazar said. “Roddy’s got a 2001.”

“You’ll need something much better,” Zachariah said.

“If he can afford it,” Balthazar muttered.

But Zachariah grinned, a dark glinting grin that showed off all of his pointy teeth. “He doesn’t have to.”

 

*

 

As it turned out, both Zachariah’s mother, who’d always had a soft spot for Cas, and their cousin Raphael, had a vested interest in one of the members of the extended Novak family actually participating in quidditch.

“He said: ‘Nobody else in this expletives removed family has any drive towards organized sports whatsoever, of course I’ll help out with a broom’,” Zachariah said, as they all pushed their carts towards the barrier at King’s cross. Cas and Anna had hitched a ride with the others because Michael was working once again.

Balthazar grinned. “We guilted them all about not spending enough time with you and Anna and about how your mom and dad...well, anyway.”

Zachariah nodded. “Raphael says that if you can make the team, he’ll get you whichever broom you want, even if you don’t want to play quidditch after Hogwarts.”

Cas was floored. He’d always sort of thought his cousins didn’t really like him all that much. “Wow,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You outfly that smarmy bastard, hear me, Castiel?” Zachariah said, grinning one last time at Cas before he split off to find his friends.

Cas was beyond eager to change into his robes and hang out with Sam again. Anna had futzed off the moment they’d arrived, to find her best friends and giggle about boys, probably. That was all she did these days, when she wasn’t making eyes at and then sleeping with the cute blonde girl who worked at the gas station down the road. Which Cas had sworn not to tell anyone about. Right.

“Sam said they’d save us seats in a compartment,” Cas said.

Balthazar wrinkled his nose as they dropped their trunks and owls off. “We’re not going to stay with my friends?” he asked.

Cas paused with one foot on a step. He hadn’t thought about that. “Uh,” he said. “We can.”

Balthazar stared at Cas. “I’m only joking, obviously,” he said. “Nobody I know would save me a compartment seat. Come on, let’s go. We’re going to get snacks this time, by Merlin’s beard!”

Cas and Balthazar walked down almost the entire length of the train before a hand grabbed the edge of Cas’s robe and hauled him into a compartment.

“Castiel!” Sam exclaimed, even as Cas tripped over himself trying to get up and straighten his robes out.

“Sam,” Cas said, peering behind Sam at Dean, whose legs were propped up on the seat across from him. “Dean.”

Balthazar was still in the corridor and he looked surprisingly nervous for someone who rarely showed fear on his face. “Cas,” he said, his tone almost warning. “What’s this?”

Right. Manners. He hadn’t introduced anybody yet. “Right. Sam, Dean, this is my cousin. Balthazar. Balthazar, Sam, Dean, etcetera.”

“Nice to meet you!” Sam said. Dean grunted.

Balthazar narrowed his eyes and ignored them, making come-hither motions with his hand. “Castiel.”

Cas leaned his head out of the compartment so Balthazar could whisper: “You are aware that those are the Winchesters, Castiel.”

“Yes,” Cas said. “Sam and Dean Winchester.”

“God,” Balthazar moaned. “I thought you meant someone else by Sam and Dean. We can’t sit here, Cas! Our entire reputation will be ruined.”

“You said we didn’t have anyone else to sit with,” Cas said.

“We’re your last resort?” Dean asked, from behind them.

Cas jumped about a half foot in the air at the feeling of the elder Winchester nearly breathing down his neck. “No, no,” Cas said.

Dean folded his (big, nice) arms across his chest. “Because if we’re your last resort, I think I can safely say you and little Mister Beady Eyes can fuck right off.”

Cas wilted like a flower.

Sam said: “Dean, let Cas in or I swear to God.”

Balthazar looked both ways in the corridor and then heaved a heavy sigh. “All right, all right, in, in, in. Not as a ‘last resort’,” he said, making his voice all funny as he used air quotes.

“How about some gratitude for us saving you a spot?” Dean asked.

Cas wilted some more. Dean was standing way too close.

“Thank you, oh mighty Dean...iel,” Balthazar said.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Just Dean. And you, Blue Eyes?”

Cas looked up, meeting Dean’s green eyes. He felt like a deer caught in headlights. He forgot how his mouth worked. Did he even still have a mouth? Maybe Dean had stolen it.

The train jerked beneath them, and Cas stumbled a little, trying not to hit either Balthazar or Dean with his stupid clumsy body. “U-uh,” he said.

“Not quite, Perdition,” Dean said, and oh there, that was the last bit of Castiel’s pride and grace floating away on a summer’s breeze.

“Thank you,” Cas squeaked.

Dean smiled.

Cas became a puddle on the floor.

“Jesus, Dean,” Sam muttered, hauling Cas into the compartment. “You’re a monster.”

Dean snorted, returned to his corner, and propped his legs up again. “Anybody wakes me up for anything other than the snack lady and there’ll be hell to pay.”

He went to sleep almost instantly, and Sam looked at Balthazar with eager eyes. “You’re in Slytherin,” he said, like Balthazar was a fount of knowledge. “I bet you could help Dean pass Ancient Languages.”

“Hell,” Dean muttered.

 

*

 

The ride to Hogwarts was excellent and full of Sam telling Cas all about how Dean had gotten stuck in the “Impala” he was fixing up (“No, it isn’t a deer, it’s a car, I’ll show you later.”). Balthazar warmed up to Sam fairly quickly, but when they got jumbled up on their way to the Great Hall and Sam left to the Ravenclaw table, Balthazar pulled Cas to the side and said: “We’ll talk later.”

The Sorting Hat sang a song, a bunch of kids got placed in a bunch of houses, and only one of the new Hufflepuffs came over and sat right next to Cas and Ash, his eyes bright behind his thick, black-framed glasses as he introduced himself as Chuck.

“We know, dude,” Ash said. “It called your name.”

“I’m just so excited,” Chuck said, and Cas couldn’t help but smile. Chuck was quite small, and that was compared to Cas, who was not the tallest person in their year.

Like the last year, once the sorting was done (Cas noted that nobody made the sorting hat pause for more than a split second, like he apparently had), Professor McGonagal stood at the front and delivered a short but rousing speech, and they all feasted on food the house elves had made.

Unlike last year, Cas was not stressed out about being in Hufflepuff, and joined the rest of his house in their common room before retiring up to the bed chambers. One of the older Puffs, a girl with a wry smile, was telling the first years a story when Cas and Ash wandered back.

“And there he is!” The girl, who Cas recognized as a third-year named Tessa, smiled at Cas.

The first years gaped at Cas, their eyes wide. “No way,” one of them said.

“Yeah,” Tessa said. “Cas, come over here. I was just telling everyone about how you pulled Dean Winchester out of the Owlery fire.

“Oh,” Cas said.

Chuck bounded up to Cas. “Is it true? Did you really fly there on your own and save him?”

“Er, yes,” Cas said, stepping back when the first years all stood up and started pelting questions at him.

“Now, now,” Tessa said, “Let’s not all ask him at once. How about you guys go to bed, and leave our resident hero alone?”

“Don’t hog him,” one of the older students across the room said. “First thing you gotta learn about Hufflepuff is that we all share.”

The first years were reluctant, but they all went as directed up the stairs, and then Cas was left alone in the room with the older students, who also wanted to know.

“Is it true that you used a sticking charm to keep from dropping him?”

“I heard you had to bust into the broom shed to steal a broom.”

“That’s why your arm was in a sling, wasn’t it!”  
“Pom couldn’t fix that up?”  
“Dislocation, Curtis.”  
“Right.”

“I heard you actually stole a dragon, roped him into doing your bidding with animal magics, and then saved Dean Winchester after setting the building on fire yourself.”

Cas, who had been mostly taken aback by the older students’ interest in him, stared at the boy, Andy Gallagher, who shrugged and sat back. “I didn’t say it was true, I just said I heard it.”

“I did not ride a dragon,” Cas said. “It was a broom. And I did use a sticking charm.”

“In your first year,” Tessa said. “That’s impressive.”

Was it? Cas tilted his head, but the other Hufflepuffs were nodding. Ash clapped Cas on the back. “Oh.”

“That’s the sort of behaviour we like to promote here,” Rachel, their Head Girl, said. “So the rest of the school doesn’t think we’re all just goody two shoes.”

“The breaking-the-rules part is frowned upon though,” a boy said.

“Well, yes,” Rachel said.

Ash cleared his throat and elbowed Cas who winced. Right. “Do any of you know when quidditch tryouts are?”

Rachel shook her head. “That’s Lina’s department. She goes to bed early. Tough gig she has, head chaser and all. I’ll tell her you’re ready, though. She wanted me to ask you.”

Cas nodded. “Thank you.”

Rachel smiled. “You’re welcome.”

As the rest of their house trickled off, Cas and Ash stayed up with Rachel and her friends, talking about their new year at Hogwarts, and it wasn’t until he was in bed that Cas retheficisaliezed he’d made new friends without even trying.

 

*

 

When Cas told Sam that he was going to try out for their quidditch team, Sam dropped all of his heavy books in the middle of the corridor.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Sam chanted, until Professor Harvelle strode by them and smacked him on the back of the head.

“We don’t curse, Samuel,” she said, leveling a glare at Cas for not discouraging his ways, probably.

“Sorry, Professor,” Sam said, less-than-meekly. “Won’t happen again.”

Professor Harvelle snorted but left them to clean up Sam’s mess. They had to run to get to Potions on time, but they got a seat together which made the efforts worth their while.

“Quidditch?” Sam hissed at Cas when Slughorn was droning on about something boring in the intro chapter. “That’s so dangerous, Cas!”

Cas waited until they were chopping up the liver to lean over and say: “I’ve been playing quidditch all my life. It’s what we do at home.”

“For fun?” Sam asked.

“Just to pass the time,” Cas said. “My dad used to tell me we Novaks were born for it. We didn’t have a choice. But I like it.”

Sam shook his head and almost put the eye of newt in before the bat liver. Cas stopped him just in time. “I dunno, Cas. Last year you dislocated your arm while flying...”

“Yeah, carrying your fifty ton brother around,” Cas said. “The heaviest thing I’m going to be holding is a bat.”

Sam looked aghast at the very idea of Cas The Beater, so Cas waved him off and stirred his potion five times clockwise. “I’m trying out for Seeker, don’t worry.”

“Isn’t that hard?” Sam asked, after a long pause during which Cas was sure he too had been counting his stirring motions.

“Very,” Cas said.

Sam sighed but dropped the subject for the time being in favour of “Well, Jessica’s a seeker, so I guess that’s okay.”

The tryouts weren’t for another week, and Sam tried to discourage Cas from attending them, but each time Sam brought up the subject, Cas managed to divert his attentions to Jessica, which was surprisingly easy to do. “Jessica is a seeker. Have you seen her hair? Her hair is so nice and pretty and soft.” “Well Jessica has a broom and it is the colour of her hair, have you seen how nice her hair is?” “I love Jessica’s eyes.” etc.

By the end of the week, Sam stayed on the topic for a full ten minutes, countering Cas’ “Jessica flies pretty good though, don’t you think” with “You could fall off your broom and die” when a loud, growling voice said: “Sammy, are you talking about sports?”

“Fuck off, Dean,” Sam said, at the same time as Cas said: “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, Squirt,” Dean said, ruffling Cas’s hair. “I heard y’all say Quidditch, you can’t deny it, Sammy.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Cas is trying out for the Hufflepuff team.”

“No shit?” Dean looked almost impressed, and if Cas had been even a little bit nervous about trying out, he wasn’t now. Now he was going to go out there and kick some serious ass and make Dean make that face at him again for all eternity. “I didn’t know you could fly.”

Cas stared.

One corner of Dean’s mouth twitched. “That was a joke,” he said. “A bad one, I guess. That’s pretty wicked, though. I mean, we’ll be mortal enemies, but. You know. Cool.”

Of course, because they would be on opposing teams.

“You gotta stop staring, Pintsize,” Dean said. “You’ll creep people out.”

Cas turned his attentions to his transfigurations notes. “Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be. Be sorry if you don’t kick ass tomorrow at your tryouts. Actually, no. Don’t even be sorry about that. Just don’t not kick ass. Kick...”

“Dean,” Sam said.

“You know what I mean. You’ll go far, or some other inspirational bullshit.”

“Mister Winchester, what have I said about swearing.”

“Gotta go,” Dean said, patting Sam and Cas on the back before running in the opposite direction of Professor Harvelle’s voice.

“Ugh,” Sam said. “Where were we?”

“Learning about the basic principles behind turning one object into another wholly different object,” Cas said.

Sam nodded. “Read that technical diagram out loud again.”

 

*

 

The tryouts themselves would have been almost anticlimactic, had it not been for the surprise thunderstorm that appeared the morning of. Luckily, Zachariah and Balthazar had been coaching Cas for every situation imaginable, including: dementors on the pitch, dislocated joints happening during the game (what a fun lesson and subsequent punishment from Michael that had been), “bludgers” to the face, and rain. It had only rained once all summer, but Zachariah had been quick to send Cas out in it, making the younger Novak run and then fly laps, with Balthazar throwing rocks at him all the while.

During the tryout period, the bludgers were kept in their locked box except for when Lina was letting people try out for Beater.

The first hour of tryouts was spent listening to Madam Hooch spell out the basic rules of Quidditch, and then doing some rudimentary flying exercises which Cas had long since perfected. He was flying on his mother’s broom, which Anna had snuck over in her trunk, and while it was no Nimbus 2001, it was the best broom he’d ever used, and it knew him well.

Lina flew among the people trying out, a group of Hufflepuffs that ranged from seventh to first year students. During the first while, she weeded out the people who couldn’t perform the simpler flying exercises, and then the more difficult ones. When they finally got to people trying out for individual positions, another handful left the pitch, and the number dwindled as Lina evaluated her existing chasers (who all stayed), the beaters (two large boys with matching grins who were plucked, twin fourth year students), and then the keepers (Tessa beat out the burlier boys by being more agile than they and well able to take and dodge hits).

Finally, Cas and three other students (one of whom was the existing Seeker, Roddy) were left with Lina on the pitch. He knew that Balthazar and possibly Sam were up in the bleachers watching him, a fact which only served to make Cas more anxious until he remembered that he couldn’t actually see them through the rain.

“Alright,” Lina shouted, her grip on her broom steady. Of course, she was used to flying in worse conditions than this. “I’m going to have you do a few timed races around the course on your own and then a few together, and then we’re going to have a little snitch-seeking game.”

One of the first-years trying out fell off his broom after his second lap, and Lina consoled him and sent him off to get warmed up. The other one stuck out her laps, and came back to them with a time of 3:00. Roddy went next, and though his corners were a bit off, his straight stretches were damn fast, and he barely passed over 1:30.

Cas thought he might throw up until Lina said: “Castiel, go!” The moment he shot off, with his hands freezing but his broom a comforting rod beneath him, he felt at ease, like he’d been built for this. His turns weren’t shaky, his runs were steady, but he felt nervous as he raced back to Lina and her watch. Had he made it in time?

Lina clicked the timer on her watch when Cas passed the finishing line. “One thirty,” she announced.

Roddy was scowling. Lina set the three of them up at one end of the pitch and told them they’d be racing straight to one end, looping around the top of the goal posts, and then coming back.

“On your marks,” she said.

“Get set.”

Her “Go” was lost in the rush of the wind past Castiel’s ears. He thought he might want to keep an eye on his competitors, but every time he felt the urge to look over at them, he felt it best to just make his body as small as possible and shoot forwards. This race was important, he knew, because if he had a lesser broom than any other seeker, a straight race might decide the game.

He’d been given the middle goal post, which meant he had to climb higher than the other two, but it just meant a slight angling of his broom, which he did about halfway down the pitch. No sense in fighting gravity the entire way there. He had to brake just before the post in order to swing around it in a point turn, which he did backwards, trusting his broom to help angle him forwards in the few seconds that the move saved him. He was rewarded with a view of the stormy pitch and -- a golden glint, that his eye caught on as he pressed his broom onwards. The first year was behind him, that much he could see from his vantage point up high, but Roddy was almost in front of him.

Cas pushed his broom as fast as he could manage, but his eye kept darting to the side to what he was sure was the golden snitch, flying just beside Roddy. 

The elder Hufflepuff didn’t seem to notice the golden ball, but he was just about beating Cas. Luckily, Cas’s quick turning had shaved valuable seconds for him, and he and Roddy crossed the makeshift finish line together.

“That was close,” Roddy crowed, “Hah! I definitely won that one, right, Lin?”

Lina ignored him, her hand still on the timer as she waited for the first year to cross the line. “Sorry Sarah,” she said when the girl caught up to Cas and Roddy, only a few seconds behind them. And she was flying one of the school’s Cleansweeps, if Cas’s eyes weren’t mistaken.

“Really good,” Cas said, stretching his hand out for a high five.

“Not bad at all,” Lina said. “Next year there’ll be chaser positions open, you’d best come back for that.”

Sarah sniffed, but she smiled shakily anyway and clapped her hand against Cas’s. “I was pretty close,” she said.

“Really close,” Lina agreed. “It isn’t over yet though, so don’t you all go running off now.”

“Come on, Lin,” Roddy moaned. “I won that race, fair and square!”

“Wait, I still have a chance?” Sarah asked, eyes hopeful.

“Yes,” Lina said. “You were all good enough that the first person to tell me where the golden snitch is will be the new Hufflepuff Seeker.”

“That’s shit!” Roddy said. The Snitch was hovering right by his left ear. Cas was surprised that Roddy couldn’t hear it buzzing. “I’m the fastest!”

“You’re also the one who failed to catch the Snitch at all last year,” Lina said. She sounded cross. Cas would be too, if his seeker couldn’t see what was right in front of his face.

“You mean the Snitch could be anywhere?” Sarah asked, sounding despairing.

“Hey,” Cas said, drifting closer to Roddy, who was practically red in the face. “Hang on, you’ve...got something on your face.”

“What?” Roddy asked, turning his head to Cas.

Cas couldn’t even believe this was going to work. He reached out, aiming for Roddy’s nose, and then snatched as quickly as he could at the snitch, which tried to dart away a second before Cas’s hand closed around it.

It was...warm.

“Think I got it,” Cas mumbled, and moved his broom away quickly because Roddy started shouting then, about loyalty and team spirit and how this team had gone to shit, but all Cas could hear was rain and the feeble fluttering of the snitch in his hand.

“Roddolph Hanes,” Madam Hooch said, from where she’d apparently been monitoring their tryouts the entire time. “You will conduct yourself with dignity, and you will remove yourself from this pitch at once.”

“It’s not official yet!” Roddy shouted. “Come on, Lin, I’ll do anything!”

The look Lina was pointing at Cas was something he’d never seen pointed in his direction: it was pride. “I name Castiel Novak as the new seeker of Hufflepuff house,” she said, before casting a derisive look at Roddy. “Now it’s official. Sorry, Rod.”

Roddy shouted again, with his wand out, but Hooch got between him and Cas and Roddy went flying from his broom without her even having to pull her wand from her cloak.

Lina, Cas and Sarah retired to the changing room, where Sarah looked at Cas with wide eyes and asked: “How’d you see it? It was so dark out there, I could barely see you!” And Cas remembered not being able to find the nose on Roddy’s face, but he also remembered the gleam of those fluttering wings.

He shrugged. “I saw it during the race. It was following Roddy.”

“You saw it while you were trying to beat that lummox?” Lina asked, and whistled softly when Cas nodded. “Bravo.”

The moment Cas stepped into the hall, he was met with Sam’s arm slung across his shoulder.

“Seeker!” Sam exclaimed. “That’s the most prestigious position, Cas!”

“You were watching?” Cas asked.

“Captain Losechester made us sit out in the rain until you were done,” Balthazar whined. “I demand cocoa.”

“Wait, us?” Cas asked.

“Me, meat-head, and meat-head’s brother,” Balthazar said. “Now, come on, Cassy. I deserve what I am owed.”

Cas stared. Dean had been there? In the miserable rain? Watching Cas?

“Cocoa’s free,” Sam informed Balthazar.

“You are a moose,” Balthazar whined. “And you must now wait on me hand and foot.”

Cas just smiled, even when Balthazar completely messed up Cas’s hair.

Seeker and Dean, all in one day. He couldn’t feel his fingers, but he didn’t even care.

 

*

 

Sam also tried out for quidditch, despite his earlier vehement protestations against it being too dangerous a sport. His reasoning was that if his best friend and his brother were going to be playing, he didn’t want to have to choose between them, and it would just be best if they all played and cheered for each other equally. Even though being tall and flying on one of the school’s Cleansweeps tended to disqualify you from any show of skill, Sam managed to excel at keeping seemingly effortlessly. Cas watched his performance from on high, a grumpy Balthazar on one side and a proud Dean and Lisa on the other. After the tryouts, Dean clapped Sam on the back and fuck this I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE SIGNIFICANT THAT HAPPENS IN YEAR TWO EXCEPT FOR LIKE FUcKING CAS PLAYS A LOT OF QUIDDITCH AND DID FAIL MUGGLE STUDIES and dean consoles him or whatever and Cas is all :* and Sam is like “We’ll help you study! where are you going for winter break, you stayed here last year” and Dean is all *grumpy face* and Sam is all *determined face* because Anna is going to her friend’s house and Balthazar’s parents aren’t huge dickbags so him and Zach are going somewhere for winter or whatever and then Sam invites Cas over! Nice. The fun part here is how it’s like the Weasley’s house to Harry Potter ONLY MMUGGLE STYYYYLE. And also Dean’s dad isn’t there? and Bobby is their neighbour. And he has a used car lot that his wife runs while he is away at school (nice) (she is neither dead nor a zombie).  
Like ok I say neighbour but really Bobby lives a block or two away from Dean and Sam’s like apartment or whatever where John rents a place and fucks off around the country doing whatever he wants? idk what he does or whatever.

So Dean and Sam go over there all the time, probably live there when John isn’t at home and when John comes back it’s like awful and they have to go back to their tiny apartment where there is no food and stuff.

Luckily, or whatever, this one year, John just doesn’t come home which makes Bobby glare disapprovingly out the window every now and then, when he thinks Sam and Dean aren’t watching. Cas knows better than to ask about absent fathers so he says nothing about why they’re sleeping on the floor in Professor Singer’s house instead of at the Winchester place. Over the winter holidays, Cas gets a letter from Michael saying Happy Christmas in the most polite and awful possible way and Cas just threw it in the fireplace as soon as he read it. Professor Singer noticed him doing it though, from the doorway and asked: “What’re you doin’, boy?”

Cas froze. “Nothing.”

“I can tell you’re lyin’ to me, boy,” Singer says, in his low, earthy grumble. “What’s that letter?”

Cas shrugged, tiny and miserable. “Just a letter from my brother,” he mumbled.

And Professor Singer, he doesn’t really get how the siblings in Cas’ family are, but he must have heard something in Cas’ tone because he doesn’t really push it, just invites Cas to make eggnog with him and Sam.

Cas learned about Cars (a mysterious metal contraption with lots of strange moving parts) and Coffee Makers and Fridges and whole hosts of strange contraptions that he had never even heard of before. Once Professor Singer found out that Sam and Dean had taken it upon themselves to teach Cas everything they knew about the muggle world, he was delighted. Cas explained that he had no idea how any of this stuff worked, having grown up in a wizarding house far away from the nearest muggle neighbour and not being allowed to go very far on his own and Professor Singer, who had previously been gruff and distant with Cas in class, even helped explain how windshield wipers worked.

When break was over, they returned to Hogwarts. Quidditch was great, Sam and Jess were almost possibly dating (Sam talked to Jess a lot and pined over her and Jess didn’t seem interested in other boys her age, so basically they were dating). Fuck year two, man. Nothing even fucking happens except Dean and Lisa break up and Dean mopes around.

Summer break comes around, Cas didn’t actually fail spectacularly this year and his house comes in 3rd for quidditch?! probably. I think points-wise maybe they JUST miss the cup? and Gryffindor and Slytherin duke it out for 1st and like. Sam and Cas cheer for Dean and it’s awesome right up until the very end when Dean and his team hoist the cup and then they parade in past Sam and Cas and Dean makes a beeline for this one girl and they make out hardcore and Cas’s stomach twists and stuff.

I CHANGED TENSES SO DEAL WITH IT.

BACK TO PAST. I’VE GOT THIS.

END OF YEAR TWO FUCK YEAR TWO.


	3. Year Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short and i don't care, enjoy

Cas couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. Sam and Dean kept sending him letters, well sam did anyway, over the summer break, that they wanted him to come over, that X and SO and So were going on in their lives but all Cas wanted to do that summer was mope around. Until Anna came back from flouncing about in France, took one look at Cas and Balthazar, who had taken it upon himself to be Cas’s moping companion, and kicked them out of the house.

“We’ve nowhere to go, Anael,” Balthazar whined.

“You have friends,” Anna said. “I know you do.”

“No,” Balthazar said. “He has friend. Singular. And I’ve none.”

“You hang out with Slytherins all the time!” Cas said.

Balthazar rolled his eyes and folded his hands across his chest, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the hot air. “Yeah, but they aren’t my friends or anything.”

“Cas has a friend, then,” Anna said. Both boys looked at the floor, at their scuffed shoes and too-long pants rolled up at the ankles. They were dressed well, because their hand-me-downs had been expensive when first purchased, but both were the youngest siblings still. Random facts! Completely unrelated to plot. Anyway Anna looked at them both, sighed and was like “Get your brooms, we’re going shopping.”

They get their brooms and they like fly out to Sam and Dean’s after sending an owl and stuff and when they get there, Prof. Singer is all “WHAT IN HELL’S DAMN TARNATION DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, FLYING THE WHOLE wAY HERE WHEN WEVE A PERFECTLY GOOD FIREPLACE” and Anna is all “We didn’t know if you had a fireplace” and Singer is like “CAS STAYED HERE HE SHOULD KNOW” and Cas is like ~i just followed anna “Um i forgot” and Anna is all defiant and then Sam and Dean are there! and Sam shows Cas what he was working on which is like some kind of muggle law studies? Cas is perplexed but Sam is super enthusiastic which was great FUCK tENSE CHANGE and they had dinner at the Singer/Winchester place which was grand and then when they left Sam was excited at Cas and Balthazar and told them to come back the next day. So they did! And Anna came too? And they did go shopping. And this went on for a sweet week until a) Michael said he was coming back from wherever he’d been staying in London for his job and B) right as they were leaving through the fireplace, Balthazar went first, and Cas second and as he was staring out through the flames he saw Anna kissing Dean.

ANNA.

KISSING.

DEAN.

And when they got back, Cas played it cool and was like “are you and Dean dating” and Anna was like “please it’s nothing serious” and Cas was so cool he only nodded and then when Anna turned her back he just booked it away and didn’t cry in front of her or anything.

This was stupid. He shouldn’t even want to cry about anything. He didn’t even like Dean. Right?

The next day Michael came back and Cas sent Sam an owl and was like “I probably shouldn’t come over for the rest of the summer” and Sam sends back like a sad face emoticon, WIZARD TEXTING.

SUMMER ENDS and school begins and boy does it begin with a bang. First off, Cas is allowed to have a broom and during the last week of summer when they went to buy all their shit, Raphael (??) or whoever came down and they went with Cas to the broom store and Cas was like “that one” and they were like “Don’t you want a Nimbus? They’ve just come out with the 5001” and Cas was like “no i want that one” and he points to the beautiful birch broom, and Raphael is like “really by them” and Anna is like “IT HAS GREAT REVIEWS” and doesn’t swear and Cas just stares at it and then finally it is in his hands and it is HIS it is his broom and he flies it around and breaks it in for a week and he can feel that it’s got a wicked sense of humour but like in a teamworky kind of way. Where it uses teamwork with him because he understands it. Anyway.

School.

Cas tried out for seeker of course but nobody not even fucking Roddolph Hanes could beat him, especially not on his new broom. The head chaser, Lina????? Is that her name. She was all “Impeccable performance” and Cas was all :* especially when they were leaving the pitch and he was all red-faced and mussed-from-wind-hair and they passed the Gryffindor team who were going to try out and Dean was at the front, talking to one of their chasers who he had totally gone out with during the summer if Sam’s letters were accurate, and when they passed the Hufflepuffs, who were all sort of proclaiming Cas’s praise and stuff, Dean gave Cas this look, like a look look, like head to toe appraisal, like he was stunned out of his conversation with a pretty girl look. It was a good thing that Cas was already red-faced because otherwise the entire world probably would have seen him blush and duck his head. As it was, the team just thought he was being modest and invited him to hang out with them when they went to Hogsmeade. And Cas was like o-okay.

Hogsmeade was pretty cool! Sam was hanging out with some Gryffindors and Balthazar was hanging out with some Slytherins and Cas with his team but they all met up at the Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes or whatever and Cas saw Sam looking longingly at some stuff and Cas was like “Sam let’s go” and Sam was like “No, I can’t take your money.” and Cas was like “seriously one day you will pay me back, probably and it isn’t even my money” like if he took the money Michael would know and Michael would kill him probably. Anyway they buy candy and Cas sees that later Dean is all don’t take charity sammy and Cas like went in front of Sam who was a hunched over moose and stuff and was like “Fuck off, Dean, it’s not charity, it’s friendship.” and Dean is all O___O “YOU KNOW HOW TO SWEAR” and Sam was all “DEAN FUCK OFF” and Dean was all “FINE”

good times.

So Cas and Sam did a lot of like studying and also quidditch practice because their respective teams practiced a lot but then in their spare time when Sam wasn’t talking about Jessica, him and Cas went and flew around and basically did what Cas used to do in his summers before Hogwarts and played fake quidditch which was lots of fun. Balthazar joined them a lot but he also was getting other friends, some good and some bad.

And Cas’s team did really well! Like he’d learned after last year to keep his eye out for the snitch but to also keep an eye on the points his team was getting? So like if they were down in points he just fuckin chased the other seeker around and made sure they weren’t getting the snitch, and if his team was down he caught it and if his team was up he waited. And he was fast as hell, and the other seekers had to step up their game but for now he was the fastest and best, really. Rain, snow, sun, wind, nothing could stop him.

The last game of the season was a face-off between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, which Cas had waited on tenterhooks to find out about. Like him and Sam were watching Gryffindor vs. Slytherin and cheering for Dean but Cas already knew that he was going to the playoffs. He partially wanted to play against Dean and like beat him or show him how great he was or impress him or something but he partially didn’t want to play against Dean because he got this feeling like in the pit of his stomach that his team was going to win. And Gryffindor had won for a couple of years in a row, with Dean at the helm, coaching his teammates into being the best they could be.

But Cas was a fucking fantastic seeker. And he was being modest about it even. He could see Dean’s seeker struggling, even against Slytherin, whose seeker was a big lug who caught the snitch 8 times out of 10 but was slow as fuck.

Anyway, Gryffindor won.

And the day of the big game, Sam was nowhere to be seen. Balthazar described it as “Brother cheering for brother,” and Cas nodded, wondering if he was going to throw up on the pitch. He had barely eaten at breakfast because like he was good. But sometimes their keeper let in a bunch of goals and man if they had Sam on their team they’d be unstoppable.

So they went out, and it was raining even though it was basically summer. So everyone was wet and miserable already, although Cas’s team had charmed gloves and goggles because Cas was a master charm caster. And they played and played and Dean kept glaring at Cas and things and then ignoring him and Cas actually thought he’d found the snitch but wasn’t like racing towards it because the Gryffindor seeker was just like tailing him when suddenly a bludger hit Cas out of fucking NOWHERE, right in the shoulder, RIGHT IN THE SHOULDER THAT HAD BEEN DISLOCATED WHEN CAS HAD SAVED DEAN

and someone was shouting and Cas was falling down slowly because his good hand had a good fucking grip on his broom and it was hovering like it was supposed to

and then Madame Hooch blew her whistle because Cas couldn’t see and he was trying to make it to the ground but AGAIN ANOTHER BLUDGER HIT HIM AND even though he ducked because he knew his training, they’d both come from behind! And he landed on the ground and like he couldn’t feel his hand or his entire body because cold but mostly his hand because dislocated shoulder and like possibly shattered bone somewhere

And Lina was shouting at Hooch and then Balthazar was on the pitch ILLEGALLY cas might add and he was like “Let’s go, hospital wing now” and Cas was like “Are you for fucking real” And Balthazar was like “What” and Cas was like “PUSH MY ARM BACK IN”

and Lina came up to him and she was like “Okay we’re getting a penalty shot and we’re going to have to get a bunch of fucking points, Cas you’d better go to the wing now” and Cas was like “I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE, PUSH MY SHOULDER BACK IN AND GIVE ME A SLING” and Lina was like “NO you have to play next year too, I’m not risking you losing your ARM, Cas”  
and Cas glared at Balthazar and Balthazar was like “don’t give me that look why are you even still standing” and Cas was like “I AM IN BLINDING PAIN I AM FURIOUS I WANT TO WIN” and Balthazar gave Cas a look and then he reached out slowly and poked Cas’s hand

and then Cas fainted

because he broke like a billion bones probably

But he came to in the hospital wing and Balthazar was furious also and Cas’s arm was in a sling and he was like “I AM NOT STAYING HERE” and he like rushed back out even though he was suuuuper dizzy and the hospital lady was probably chasing after him but fuck that he had a sling he could catch the snitch with one hand

and when he got there, the game wasn’t finished because the Gryffindor seeker needed glasses seriously and Cas’s entire team was huddled in their changing room all wet and shit and Lina was like “CAS GET OUT OF HERE” and Cas was like “NO someone just help me put my shirt on I won’t even use my bad hand I can fly with one. Don’t need anything else. My hand isn’t even really broken it’s just like bruised” and Lina was exasperated but okay they were tied and nobody had been able to get any goals and okay she was willing to put Cas back out there?? And they did and Cas was glad for the rain because boy did it sure numb up his entire bad side. And he was flying about as slowly as the Gryffindor seeker and Lina had their beaters following him because she thought he was ridiculous, but then suddenly, Cas saw it.

Right there.

In the middle of the pitch, just waiting.

And the Gryffindor seeker was like flying around aimlessly, looking pretty sad and lost or whatever. And Dean was mad. And Cas started just going for it and his beaters were like “Cas fucking don’t go there goddamn” and he was like gritting his teeth and climbing and the crowds were pretty quiet because every time anyone went to make a goal they couldn’t get past the keepers and they were tied and then fucking the Gryffindor seeker saw what Cas was doing and barrelled past him and Cas made a high desperate sound and just like went for it and wow that hurt and was a bad idea but the Gryffindor seeker was just ahead of him just there just almost at the snitch and then Cas’s arm was out and he leaned forward just a little just a bit just at the snitch

and then he fell off his broom for the 2nd time that day

but the snitch was in his hand

and he woke up and his entire team shouted and ruffled up his hair and man Dean did not speak to him for a week because they had exams but also probably because he was mad.

And that was the end of year three, Cas’s hand hurt whenever it rained a bit and Madame Pomfrey hated him forever and probably so did Dean.


End file.
